Haley Gorecki is used to waiting. After opening her freshman season on the bench, she started for the first time in the ninth game of the season, only to go 0-for-6 against UMass. Five games later, she suffered a season-ending hip injury.

Over the summer, she experienced a setback, and she waited out the entire 2016-17 season on the sideline. Returning in 2017-18, Gorecki flourished as a sharp-shooter, notching a career-best 42.3% from behind the arc, but this season was once again cut short by another injury to the hip. And the waiting continued.

Her second return from injury, in 2018-19, marked one of the best individual seasons in Duke history. Gorecki averaged 17.2 points, 7.1 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 2.6 steals while starting all 30 contests and tying the program single-season record with 36.0 minutes per game. But Duke, after making the NCAA tournament in 2017 and 2018 when Gorecki was sidelined with hip injuries, missed out in 2019. So Gorecki waited for a shot in her fourth year of eligibility, as a graduate student.

Once again, Gorecki impressed. She was named to the All-ACC first team and defensive team. AP recognized her as Honorable Mention All-America and she was one of five finalists for the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award as the top shooting guard in the nation. The stats speak for themselves, but the wins against Florida State and NC State down the stretch left many with the impression that Duke might sneak into the tournament.

Haley Gorecki for ACC Player of the Year: pic.twitter.com/oVmb0m0Oq6

— Duke Women’s Basketball (@DukeWBB) March 1, 2020

Gorecki played 40 minutes and scored at least 20 points in both those games, including the final four against Florida State and the final five against NC State. Of course, instead of waiting for her team’s name to be called on selection Monday, Gorecki is waiting for a tournament bracket that will never be released, much less played.

“Obviously, that would have been my first tournament to play in, which was special to me,” Gorecki told Just Women’s Sports. “The way it ended, there was no closure in a sense. It was just sad.”

Nevertheless, Gorecki could look forward to the WNBA draft. Universally, Gorecki was viewed as a prospect, but there was little unanimity on where she might end up.

“I got a lot of phone calls from coaches in the WNBA who expressed interest in drafting me, so that helped to calm my nerves,” Gorecki said. “It made me feel a lot better knowing that I was being looked at as a prospect in the draft and that there was potential for me to be selected.”

Still, not knowing where she would be selected, Gorecki was antsy until draft day. Even then, she was left waiting.

“From talking to coaches, my name was always mentioned in the second round, early second round,” Gorecki said. “It was never in the third. When all of the names were being called, I kept thinking, ‘Okay, where’s my name?’”

With the 31st pick, the Seattle Storm drafted Gorecki. Even Storm head coach Dan Hughes thought Gorecki would be taken sooner, as his staff projected an alternate team to snatch her in the second round.

“Finally, my name popped up and I was relieved,” Gorecki recalled. “It’s funny because Seattle’s coach was actually the last coach I spoke with and now that’s where I’m headed. It all ended up working out in the end.”

Haley Gorecki’s gonna fit in justttt fine in Seattle with these handles. @HaleyGorecki @seattlestorm (via @DukeWBB)

pic.twitter.com/Az1xHcGer5

— WSLAM (@wslam) April 20, 2020

As a third round pick and a rookie, nothing is guaranteed for Gorecki. The roster of 15 will need to be culled down to 12 spots.

“First and foremost, I want to make the team,” Gorecki said. “Then, I want to learn as much as I can because you never know how the team is going to be next year. Trades happen, people retire, things change. I want to learn from the people that have been playing in the league for the longest.”

That would be Sue Bird. The 39 year old guard and oldest active player is coming off a lost season due to a left knee surgery. Without her or 2018 League and Finals MVP Breanna Stewart for the 2019 season, the Storm were unable to defend their title. Still, Seattle was a playoff team last season, and the return of Stewart and Bird makes a crowded roster even more tight.

“Being in Seattle, I’ll be learning from the best. Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart — so many legends are on that team,” Gorecki said. “I’m excited to be a sponge and take in their experience and their advice. The coach is great. The organization is awesome. I’m ready to learn and compete.”

The guard position is especially packed. Last year, Jordin Canada emerged as a rising star averaging 9.8 points and 5.2 assists per game, good for third and first on the team, respectively. Former first overall pick Jewell Loyd made her second All-Star appearance and finished second on the team in scoring. Sami Whitcomb can play at the two, and last year was sixth on the team in scoring and third in assists. On top of it all, Bird is coming back.

Gorecki will face steep competition in training camp, whenever it starts. It is indisputable, however, that she will bring a lot to Seattle. Last year, her 166 made free throws were ninth in the college game, and at an efficient 85.6%. Her 554 points were 38th in the country.

“Haley is one of the most productive players in America in the college game,” Hughes said. “She has good size… she gets to the foul line about as well as any player in college basketball a year ago and she has high skill. With all that skill, there’s a toughness about her that was very, very attractive.”

Gorecki’s final college game, an ACC tournament quarterfinal loss to Boston College, epitomized her tenure in blue. She collected 25 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, and a steal. She hit a three-pointer in her 17th straight contest and went 8-for-8 at the foul line. The game has also marked the beginning of her wait.

“There’s no definitive answer for when this is all going to start,” she said. “It’s all still up in the air and nobody has an answer.”

Until then she will, as always, stay ready. With her trainer over Zoom, Gorecki has been lifting, doing core and band work, and working on ball handling.

“You never know when they are going to say, ‘Okay, it’s time to come to training camp.’”

Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, at a White House ceremony this afternoon. 

The Team USA standout is the most decorated women’s swimmer in the sport’s history. In addition to her seven Olympic golds, she’s also won a total of 21 gold medals at the World Championships, the most of any swimmer regardless of gender. 

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The esteemed award recognizes those who have "made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors," according to a White House press briefing. 

Ledecky is one of 19 medal recipients chosen by the Biden administration this year. She joins a class that spans the worlds of politics, sports, film, human rights, religion, and science. Her fellow 2024 awardees include Everything Everywhere All at Once actress Michelle Yeoh, pioneering Hispanic astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, plus posthumous winners Jim Thorpe, the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the US, and assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers. 

Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and USWNT legend Megan Rapinoe were among 2022’s class of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients. Biles and Rapinoe were the fifth and sixth women athletes to be given the honor, making Ledecky the seventh.

After an illustrious career for both club and country, Gotham FC and U.S. Women’s National Team defender Kelley O’Hara announced today via Kelley on the Street that she will be retiring from professional soccer at the end of this year, making the 2024 NWSL season her last.

"I have always said I would play under two conditions: that I still love playing soccer, and if my body would let me do it the way I wanted to," O’Hara told Just Women’s Sports in the lead-up to her retirement announcement. "I realized a while back that I was always going to love it, so it was the physical piece that was going to be the deciding factor."

The 35-year-old will retire as a two-time World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and at least a two-time NWSL champion, depending on where Gotham finishes this season. Her legacy as a player is hard to fully encapsulate, and will forever run through some of the biggest snapshots in USWNT and NWSL history. 

In 2012, O’Hara played every minute of the USWNT’s Olympic gold medal run, after having recently converted into a defender. Her soaring goal off the bench in the 2015 World Cup semifinal is the stuff of legend. And her return from lingering injury to play in every knockout match of the national team’s 2019 World Cup win cemented a storybook international career. 

It was O’Hara who scored the overtime goal in 2021 to earn the Washington Spirit their first-ever NWSL championship, and O’Hara who returned to help see Gotham earn a title in 2023 after years spent in the trenches with the club’s previous iteration, Sky Blue. Her 15-year career spanned two professional women’s soccer leagues in the U.S. (she earned her first professional title in 2010 with WPS’s FC Gold Pride), as well as sweeping changes to the sport both on and off the pitch.

On the field, O’Hara has always been known for a motor that never quits, making the right flank her domain in attacking possession and defensive transition. In recent years, she’s also been celebrated for a competitive fire that raises the level of her teammates, whether she’s in the starting XI or supporting from the bench.

But injuries take a toll, a reality not always seen by the fans watching from home. "I've never taken anything for granted, and I feel like I've never coasted either," O’Hara said of her late-career success in the NWSL despite battling injuries. "I've always been like, 'I gotta put my best foot forward every single day I step on this field' — which is honestly probably half the reason why I'm having to retire now as opposed to getting a couple more years out of it. I've just grinded hard."

Recently, O’Hara has been sidelined at Gotham with ankle and knee injuries, and the situation motivated her to really prioritize listening to her body. "To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you.

"People don't see the doubt that's associated with injury,” she continued. "As athletes we feel a certain way, we perform a certain way, our body feels a certain way, we're very in tune with our bodies. And there's always so much doubt surrounding injury. It’s like, 'Can I feel the way I felt before?' The reality is sometimes you don't."

O’Hara didn’t arrive at the decision to move on from her playing career lightly. But once she began seriously considering making 2024 her final year during the last NWSL offseason, it felt right. "Once I was like, 'Alright, you know what, this will be my last year,' I have had a lot of peace with it," she said. "Truly the only thing I felt was gratitude for everything that my career has been, all the things I've been able to do and the people I've been able to do it with."

She said she’ll miss daily interactions with her teammates and all the amazing memories they’ve created, though she feels lucky to have formed relationships that go beyond sharing a locker room. "You're basically getting to hang out and just shoot the shit with your best friends every day," she reflected. "Which is so unheard of, and I just feel very lucky to do it for so long."

The Stanford graduate also mentioned that the NWSL’s suspension of regular season play in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic made her realize how much playing allowed her the space to simply be creative every day. The tactical elements of soccer provided O’Hara an outlet for problem solving and made use of her naturally competitive edge.

She’s now gearing up to channel her on-field intensity into her post-playing career full time, which is a new chapter she’s excited to begin. "I don't know if the world's ready for it, like the fact that I'm not going to be putting all of my energy into football all the time," she said with a laugh. 

O’Hara said she would like to stay connected to the game in some fashion, whether it be as an owner, coach, or member of a front office. She’s also interested in the growing media space surrounding women’s sports, having provided on-camera analysis for broadcasters like CBS Sports in addition to starting a production company with her fiancée.

"I just feel like I have a lot of passions, and things that excite me," she says. "And I do want to stay as close as I can to the game, because I feel a responsibility — and I'm not sure in what capacity — to continue to grow it."

A sense of responsibility to grow the game has been a consistent refrain for the USWNT and NWSL players of O’Hara’s era, who ushered in a new age of equal pay for the national team and collectively bargained protections for those in the league. The landscape for new players looks different than it did 14 years ago, in large part due to this pivotal generation.

"I feel an immense sense of pride around that, because I don't know if any of us knew that was gonna happen," she said. "We kind of, as things unfolded, took the next step towards changing what women's football looks like in this country and around the world.

"I'm really grateful to have been part of this era with the players that I was [with], not backing down and pushing and knowing that was the right thing to do."

Whatever the future holds, O’Hara is going ahead full throttle. It’s a piece of advice she’d also give to the next generation of professionals looking to make their own impact.

"Whatever you do in life, do it because you love it, and the chips will fall in place," she said. "If you love something, you're willing to do what it takes. You're willing to make the sacrifices, you're willing to handle the roller coaster.

"To me, it's simple. Don't do it for any other reason but that, and I think you'll be alright."

The Phoenix Mercury center spoke with Robin Roberts about her 10-month incarceration, reflecting on her poor living conditions and shaky mental state ahead of her May 7th memoir.

"The mattress had a huge blood stain on it. I had no soap, no toilet paper," Griner told the ABC News anchor in last night’s 20/20 special. "That was the moment where I just felt less than a human." 

She also detailed some of her lowest moments during that time, saying with tears in her eyes that she went so far as to consider taking her own life on more than one occasion. However, the thought of Russian officials not releasing her body back to her family made her reconsider.

"I just didn't think I could get through what I needed to get through," said Griner.

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In February 2022, Griner was arrested and charged with drug possession and smuggling by a Russian court after Sheremetyevo International Airport police found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. The cartridges were prescribed by Griner’s doctor for chronic pain back in Arizona, where medical marijuana is legal. In the interview, the two-time Olympic gold medalist said she had a "mental lapse" while packing, and never intended to bring the cannabis products with her when she returned to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg.

"It's just so easy to have a mental lapse," Griner said. "Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn't take away from how that can happen." 

She was later sentenced to nine years behind bars after her Russian attorneys advised her to plead guilty the following July. Griner was then sent to a remote penal colony where she was forced to spend her days cutting cloth to make military uniforms. From there, it only got worse.

"Honestly, it just had to happen," she said when asked about her decision to cut off her signature long locks. "We had spiders above my bed making nests.

"My dreads started to freeze," she added. "They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You've gotta do what you've gotta do to survive."

Shortly after Griner’s initial arrest, the U.S. State Department classified her case as wrongfully detained, escalating its urgency within the government and calling even more attention to the situation. On December 8th, she was freed in a prisoner exchange negotiated by the Biden administration.

While she told Roberts she was "thrilled" when she got the news, she was also very upset about having to leave fellow wrongful detainee Paul Whelan behind. She also continues to carry guilt about her arrest, saying "At the end of the day, it's my fault. And I let everybody down."

Griner’s memoir, Coming Home, hits shelves on May 7th.

"Coming Home begins in a land where my roots developed and is the diary of my heartaches and regrets," Griner told ABC News in an exclusive statement. "But, ultimately, the book is also a story of how my family, my faith, and the support of millions who rallied for my rescue helped me endure a nightmare."

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.